Recipe Site Food52 Goes Social

Food52, a site where foodies exchange recipes, is turning itself into a social network. Launched back in 2009, the site crowdsources recipes and also has an e-commerce arm called Provisions.

Founder Amanda Hesser told our sister site FishbowlNY that while working on The Essential New York Times Cookbook, she found that the best recipes came from home cooks. “We started looking online to see what was out there, and although there are a lot of good things — blogs and recipes sites and food sites — what was lacking was a celebration of the home chef.”

Hesser is no stranger to social, having used Twitter to get feedback from cooks when she was working on the NYT cookbook: “People answered instantly and they were happy and generous, they wanted to share their knowledge and also they wanted to help you resolve your issue,” she told Mediabistro. Parts of the Food52 site were already closely integrated with social, and the site has published two cookbooks using crowdsourced recipes.

“We think its necessary because food and cooking are inherently social,” Hesser told Adweek on the latest changes. The site will turn a user’s online recipe filings into a profile that others can browse and follow.

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